Do you think render to sample should be allowed?

I actually agree with Knetter and tenfour but I don't want this idea in the back of my head that someone might have been demotivated because the rules were too restrictive.

I also feel disturbed by the fact that important parts of the music are just hidden. I don't talk about cheating. If you can make a drumsequence sound like a sampled loop, then show us the sequence, not a rendered loop. If you can create nice harmonies that sound too good to be true, then show us the notes, not a rendered sample.

For only one part the compo is about music. For the other part it's about your skills. Not only to show off but also to enable others to learn.

Rendered samples are all great if you have a focus on music but it makes your song worthless as a module. You could have entered an MP3 instead.

However, these are my thoughts but as said I don't like to keep good songs out because of "elite" restrictions. I'd like to have more exceptional rounds though. There rendering to sample can be forbidden or recording a self-played instrument can be allowed.

gilli wrote: If you can make a drumsequence sound like a sampled loop, then show us the sequence, not a rendered loop. If you can create nice harmonies that sound too good to be true, then show us the notes, not a rendered sample.

One of these rounds I've been wanting to try to reconstruct what sounds like an amen and render it. If I manage to ever do this though, I'll keep the original in an unused pattern somewhere

I love "Render to sample." Sometimes you just want a crazy f'ed up sound and render sample is the only way to really get it. I especially like using it to render a whole part of the song so I can easily reverse or chop it up.

If someone uses it to cheat, well, it's their loss. I think most people are in it for the spirit of the music anyway.

tenfour wrote:I agree with knetter.forbidding it is not the kind of thing that will stomp on people's creativity. this feature does allow people to hide anything they feel like doing to the track. if you don't have enough CPU to run your fx, then get a faster cpu or use less fx. having insufficient hardware is not a reason to allow this feature.

If it continues to be a bother, I recommend a compromise position, because I like to render to sample on lead sounds because filters in Renoise don't "follow" the note being played like synths do, or to capture a kind of distortion and have that distortion adjust with pitch.

If you render to sample, particularly as a technique for capturing a particular kind of sound, please explain what you rendered and why.

OK, guys you have made me doubt. Its a kind of trade-off. And considering that, perhaps making advanced beats/sounds is a higher goal than being fully transparent. I agree that it enables you to craft really wicked things. It sometimes also sounds more "sophisticated" when a couple of renders have been done after each other.
On the other side you can make your whole song one big sample - or big chunks of it...We can also decide to have more free-to-render/record-all rounds and less totally-restricted.. I don't know, we may also decide to keep it like this...

knetter wrote:perhaps making advanced beats/sounds is a higher goal than being fully transparent. [...] On the other side you can make your whole song one big sample - or big chunks of it...

That would be very sad for a tracked music competition. There are enough streaming competitions for such goals. I for my part would not come to SDC if I had never the chance to enjoy the compositions (read source files).

Maybe the amount and length of rendered samples could be restricted so one would have to work with them in a more creative way!?

Allowing recorded instruments is really only something for exceptional rounds I think. For instruments like the guitar or some wind instruments it is really a bless because these cannot be "emulated" without multylayered samples. But once recorded instruments are allowed, people might start recording whole sequences from their MOTIF or Triton saying that it simply sounds better. Of course it sounds better if one doesn't even try to create the sound himself.

And once Renoise (or any tracker) supports multilayered samples and a bit more intelligent instruments, then I'd prefer to see even guitar sounds created with the tracker.

gilli wrote:But once recorded instruments are allowed, people might start recording whole sequences from their MOTIF or Triton saying that it simply sounds better. Of course it sounds better if one doesn't even try to create the sound himself..

Then there should be a non synthesized instruments only limitation. Obviously.

Maybe even non keys.. but you know. Maybe we should keep it as it is for now. I'm starting to have fun more and more with sdc and I don't want things to break down. However, more exceptional rounds with different restrictions/abilities would make the compo more exciting I think. We had a couple of them by the end of last year with some interesting entries. It was good to have a usual round this time. What's next?

gilli wrote:If you can make a drumsequence sound like a sampled loop, then show us the sequence, not a rendered loop. If you can create nice harmonies that sound too good to be true, then show us the notes, not a rendered sample.

i don't know how other people use the "render selection to sample" feature, but i for myself always sampled parts that continued to exist as single note entries in my tune anyways.when i recall right i used it in "jitter" and in this round's tune. in both songs, i simply rendered to drums to sample in order to futhermore mangle them with totally different DSPs than on the original tracks (which again creates a unique sound, because the source DSPs were rendered into the sample as well).it's sometimes also just more convenient to melt a selection ranging over numerous tracks to one unit, which is totally self-contained. imagine what work it would be to simulate an episode of simple sample offsets with the original source, which consists of several tracks. that would involve a lot of copy/pasting.other things like timestretching effects would also be very hard, if not impossible to pull off with the single shot source tracks of the rendered outcome.

please don't forget this feature does not solely exist to save CPU or "hide" things away (which is a highly obnoxious thought anyway). forbidding or refusing it will actually cripple the possiblities you have at your hands when writing music with renoise.

gilli wrote:For only one part the compo is about music. For the other part it's about your skills. Not only to show off but also to enable others to learn.

i totally agree, just that i think that what you wrote is a PRO and not contra argument for keeping the feature alive.you can learn a lot from a rendered sample if you see how it was used and what the author did with it, especially when the source notes are still alive within the track (which i think is mostly (in my tunes even always) the case).

gilli wrote:Rendered samples are all great if you have a focus on music but it makes your song worthless as a module. You could have entered an MP3 instead.

i entered with an XRNS which has a rendered sequence. so relating to your statement, i actually entered a worthless song since i rendered a loop which's source is still fully intact as single shot tracks within the song and is furthermore created with the compo samples ?you can't be serious about this, gilli.but i'll consider the mp3-only suggestion next time if you think that's more helpful to others and sonicade has nothing against it. *caughs*

gilli wrote:Maybe the amount and length of rendered samples could be restricted so one would have to work with them in a more creative way!?

please don't overcomplicate the whole thing.we should keep the rules as transparent as possible by either allowing or not allowing certain features instead of starting to deal with mishmash compromises.

gilli wrote:Allowing recorded instruments is really only something for exceptional rounds I think. For instruments like the guitar or some wind instruments it is really a bless because these cannot be "emulated" without multylayered samples. But once recorded instruments are allowed, people might start recording whole sequences from their MOTIF or Triton saying that it simply sounds better.

for the first time in this thread, i have to agree with you gilli, which makes me feel really strange actually

gilli wrote:(...) Of course it sounds better if one doesn't even try to create the sound himself.

you cannot create the sound of a hardware synth with renoise + a few MB of samples. no matter how skilled you are. if that was possible everybody would buy a cheap sampler and some sample CDs instead of getting some rather expensive hardware synth.but remember further "real-life" discussions with you concerning this matter, i know nobody can rob you this illusion

agargara wrote:If someone uses it to cheat, well, it's their loss. I think most people are in it for the spirit of the music anyway.

gilli wrote:Rendered samples are all great if you have a focus on music but it makes your song worthless as a module. You could have entered an MP3 instead.

i entered with an XRNS which has a rendered sequence. so relating to your statement, i actually entered a worthless song since i rendered a loop which's source is still fully intact as single shot tracks within the song and is furthermore created with the compo samples ?you can't be serious about this, gilli.but i'll consider the mp3-only suggestion next time if you think that's more helpful to others and sonicade has nothing against it. *caughs*

"Worthless" was a bit too harsh. Gotta admit that.
It's all fine when rendered selections are used in a creative way. Also consider my very last post.

gilli wrote:"Worthless" was a bit too harsh. Gotta admit that.It's all fine when rendered selections are used in a creative way. Also consider my very last post.

nah, i don't mind you being harsh. i actually like it when you're harsh *meeow*

i just thought that your comment wasn't true or appropriate(?), because i simply think a song can be still of some quality even though it has used the render feature.
of course i agree that it always depends on how the feature was used and what source you took to render.
now if people would start rendering arpeggiated melodies, whole chords incl. progressions and what not, and the sole thing we would see were empty patterns with a C-4 in the first row being the only note entered, then things would've gone to far..

maybe i was a bit too self-centered during this discussion because i haven't noticed somebody else using the render to selection feature in this compo at all (shame on me) except myself, so i was directly relating your statements to my entries, gilli. and apparently i was mistaken. sorry for that.

gilli wrote:Allowing recorded instruments is really only something for exceptional rounds I think. For instruments like the guitar or some wind instruments it is really a bless because these cannot be "emulated" without multylayered samples. But once recorded instruments are allowed, people might start recording whole sequences from their MOTIF or Triton saying that it simply sounds better. Of course it sounds better if one doesn't even try to create the sound himself.

And once Renoise (or any tracker) supports multilayered samples and a bit more intelligent instruments, then I'd prefer to see even guitar sounds created with the tracker.

I agree to Organic IO and would just forbid the recording of synthesized instruments and I would forbid the recording of further samples that have just the goal to enhance the sample pack.

My focus is stuff like Acoustic Guitar, E-Guitar, Flute, Cello, whatever. The rule should be not to sample these stuff as further sample, but to sample whole coherent melody or chord riffs/licks.

E.g. Prodigy or Mike Oldfield made a lot of cool tracks combining E-Guitar an electronic stuff. It's really difficult to reproduce live played Guitar synthetically.

No, I had this already in mind a long time. Thats why it was called aversion. But this discussion turned me a bit around. I'll have to try to find a proper usage for render to sample...So perhaps next round I'll enter a single channel symphonia track..

gilli wrote:Allowing recorded instruments is really only something for exceptional rounds I think. For instruments like the guitar or some wind instruments it is really a bless because these cannot be "emulated" without multylayered samples. But once recorded instruments are allowed, people might start recording whole sequences from their MOTIF or Triton saying that it simply sounds better. Of course it sounds better if one doesn't even try to create the sound himself.

And once Renoise (or any tracker) supports multilayered samples and a bit more intelligent instruments, then I'd prefer to see even guitar sounds created with the tracker.

I agree to Organic IO and would just forbid the recording of synthesized instruments and I would forbid the recording of further samples that have just the goal to enhance the sample pack.

My focus is stuff like Acoustic Guitar, E-Guitar, Flute, Cello, whatever. The rule should be not to sample these stuff as further sample, but to sample whole coherent melody or chord riffs/licks.

E.g. Prodigy or Mike Oldfield made a lot of cool tracks combining E-Guitar an electronic stuff. It's really difficult to reproduce live played Guitar synthetically.

So let's allow natural licks, please !!!!

Yeah but thats dangerous, since it is a tracking compo, and not everybody has the skills to play acoustic instruments nor the skills to sing properly (like me). You can end up with just playing 2 tracks: a singer and a guitar player. Don't know if we want that, since you can do that without a tracker too...